Iraq

THE LEVANT NEWS — Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for the release of a group of Qatari hunters kidnapped in the south of the country, his representative said Friday. A large group of unidentified armed men abducted at least 26 Qataris from their camp in …

Exclusive: Islamic State sanctioned organ harvesting in document taken in U.S. raid BY WARREN STROBEL, JONATHAN LANDAY AND PHIL STEWART FOR REUTERS — THE LEVANT NEWS–WASHINGTON– Islamic State has sanctioned the harvesting of human organs in a previously undisclosed ruling by the group’s Islamic scholars, raising concerns that the violent …

THE LEVANT NEWS — BAGHDAD: Iraq’s armed forces will move to retake the major northern city of Mosul from ISIS once they capture the western city of Ramadi, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Friday. Capturing Mosul would deprive the militant group of its biggest population center in both Iraq and …

THE LEVANT NEWS — The United States and its allies conducted 18 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and six in Syria on Wednesday, coalition leading the operations said in a statement. The airstrikes in Iraq were concentrated around the northern city of Mosul, where nine strikes destroyed 24 ISIS fighting …

THE LEVANT NEWS — The International Organization for Migration says more than 1 million migrants and refugees have crossed into Europe this year, a symbolic milestone amid the fallout of war, poverty and persecution in Africa and the Middle East. With just days left in 2015, the Geneva-based intergovernmental organization …

THE LEVANT NEWS — Iraq’s armed forces stormed the center of Ramadi on Tuesday, a spokesman for the counter-terrorism units said, in a drive to dislodge Islamic State militants from their remaining stronghold in a city they captured in May. The operation to recapture Ramadi, a Sunni Muslim city on …

NOTE: THIS IS ARTICLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN IN AUG 20, 2014 AND PUBLISHED IN THE DAILY STAR BUT THE SYRIAN WAR HAS PROVEN ITS APPROACH. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2004/Aug-20/93887-hizbullah-and-al-qaeda-friends-or-foes.ashx THE LEVANT NEWS — By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem – The final report of the Sept. 11 Commission in the US argued that Al-Qaeda had …

By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem FOR AL-MONITOR – Lebanon has historically been home to many Shiite religious schools, especially in the Jabal Amel area, which today comprises south Lebanon and part of the western Bekaa Valley. These schools have played an important role in preserving the Shiite Islamic identity and in …

By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem FOR AL-MONITOR — NAJAF, Iraq — The house of Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani lies a few hundred meters from the shrine of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib in Najaf in southern Iraq. It’s located in a poor neighborhood in the Houeich area, which comprises old …

THE LEVANT NEWS– BY Dr. Haytham Mouzahem — An-Najaf city is located southern of Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad. Including the shrine of Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib (599-661 CE), the Shia’ called it the city of ”An-Najaf al-Ashraf” which means the holy city of An-Najaf. Imam Ali …

THE LEVANT NEWS — By Graham E. Fuller — Enthusiasts for US or NATO intervention to destroy ISIS are lining up—especially among those who have never shrunk from any US military intervention in the Middle East. Some even invoke a call for initiating a “World War IV.” While there is …

THE LEVANT NEWS – By Sundeep Waslekar* — In December 2009, I met Walid Muallem, Foreign Minister of Syria, in his office in Damascus, along with an eminent British politician. He rolled out before us his vision of peace process with Israel in phases. He had two essential conditions. First, …

THE LEVANT NEWS — By Ambika Vishwanath for STRATFOR– The Islamic State’s use of natural resources to achieve its strategic goals is nothing new. Oil, one of the group’s biggest sources of funding, plays an especially important role in its calculations — something the countries fighting the Islamic State are …

THE LEVANT NEWS — By Juan Cole for THE WAHSINGTON POST — Did the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 lead to our current crisis over the Islamic State? The question has been posed baldly in this campaign season, as when a young woman at a campaign rally said …

THE LEVANT NEWS — By COREY CHARLTON for Mailonline — The vast wealth generated by oil fields, power plants, extortion, taxes, and the pillaging of antiquities has rendered ISIS the most well-funded terrorist group in history, experts have warned. With an estimated £1.3billion fortune, the group can afford not only …

The Levant News– At least 10 people have reportedly been killed and dozens of others wounded after twin bomb blasts struck near a Shia mosque in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Iraqi security officials said on Friday that a roadside bomb went off as worshipers were leaving Imam Reza Mosque in …

THE LEVANT NEWS — by Graham E. Fuller– ISIS, with its horrific attack on purely civilian targets in Paris, has established new realities about its nature, capabilities and intentions. The need for its elimination can now no longer be in doubt. It is not that Parisian lives are more important …

THE LEVANT NEWS — IRBIL, Iraq: A mass grave believed to hold the bodies of dozens of women executed by ISIS was found Saturday in Iraq’s Sinjar, where Kurdish forces are clearing bombs the extremists left. Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani announced the “liberation of Sinjar” Friday, a day after …

THE LEVANT NEWS — The attack bore all the traits of Islamic State in Iraq. A small unit of militants, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and suicide belts, hit the Tripoli prison just before sunrise. Blasting though a wall, four fighters worked their way through the heavily guarded compound before firing …

The Levant News– Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces have managed to retake some positions from the Daesh Takfiri group in northwestern Iraq as a fresh offensive is under way for taking back the strategic town of Sinjar. “The attack began at 7:00 am (0400 GMT), and the Peshmerga forces advanced on several axes to …

THE LEVANT NEWS –ZAKHO, Iraq | By Isabel Coles and Shadia Nasralla FOR REUTERS — In photo after photo, Sediq Sevo’s Facebook page lays out the riches and allure of Europe. In one picture the young Iraqi Kurd poses beneath the Eiffel Tower. In another he stands in a neon-lit …

THE LEVANT NEWS — By SIMON TOMLINSON FOR MAILONLINE– Christians face being wiped out from the Middle East within ten years as increasing numbers are killed by Muslim extremists or forced to flee persecution, Catholic aid groups have warned. The alarming rate of decline means the religion could vanish in …

THE LEVANT NEWS EXCLUSIVE — by Dr. Geoffrey Cook*– The Uyghurs are a non-Han (Sinic) Islamic people who reside in the northwest of China (in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region) next to the (also restive) Tibetans. Within Xinjiang, they are forty-five percent of the population, but they are spread over a …

More than 60 members of Iraq’s ruling coalition will seek to withdraw parliamentary support for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s reforms if he does not respond within 72 hours to their demands for wider consultation, parliamentarians said. Growing political tensions could undermine efforts to tackle an economic crisis and form a …

The Levant News — By Eric Zuesse — On October 14th, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the U.S. government had turned down the proposal from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin for the U.S. and Russia to cooperate together to eliminate ISIS and other jihadists in Syria and in Iraq. …

The Levant News — U.S. special forces who raided a prison compound in northern Iraq were acting on intelligence that Kurdish fighters were being held there by Islamic State, a source in the Kurdistan Region Security Council said on Friday. Kurdish counter-terrorism forces also took part in the raid which …

The Levant News — A U.S.-backed military operation that freed 70 Islamic State hostages in Iraq also produced a big cache of intelligence, and U.S. forces supporting Iraqi troops are likely to undertake more raids in the future, the U.S. defense chief said on Friday. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said …

The Levant News — By Ned Parker for Reuters — Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came to office a year ago promising to rebuild his country. But the Iraqi state has grown weaker as power has leaked to Shi’ite militia leaders ERBIL, IRAQ – In April, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi …

The Levant News – By Kareem Fahim for The New York Times — CAIRO — The Shiite leaders of Iran and the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia traded insults over the deaths of hundreds of Iranian pilgrims near Mecca. The government of Bahrain, long criticized for repressing the country’s Shiite …

The Levant News — The chairman of Iraqi parliament’s defense committee said that Baghdad, Russia’s ally in its fight against ISIS, wants Russia to have a bigger role in the anti-terrorist campaign in Iraq than the US and may soon officially request to start airstrikes on its soil, “We might be forced …

The Levant News — At least 63 people have been killed in a series of car bomb attacks in Iraq, police and medical sources say. One of the largest bombs was in the Shia-majority town of Khalis in the eastern province of Diyala, where at least 40 people were killed. Another …

The Levant News — Sixteen Turkish workers abducted by armed militants in Iraq have been released and are with embassy officials, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on his Twitter account on Wednesday. The men were snatched on Sept. 2 from a stadium they were building on the outskirts of Baghdad, …

The Levant News — Daesh terrorists killed 10 fellow extremists on the grounds that they wanted to desert the group and had tried to escape clashes between the militants and Iraqi forces in the town of al-Karma, located 48 kilometers (30 miles) west of the capital, Baghdad, Arabic-language al-Baghdadia satellite television …

THE LEVANT NEWS – BAGHDAD on July 18, 2015 — More than 100 people were killed in a suicide car bombing at a busy market in an Iraqi town on Friday, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out by Islamic State militants since they overran large parts of the …

THE LEVANT NEWS — BAGHDAD: An ISIS militant blew up an explosive-laden bulldozer near Haditha, killing seven Iraqi soldiers in one of a wave of bomb attacks on the northwestern town Monday, a police source said. Haditha and its nearby dam lie in one of the few parts of the …

ٍٍSource: Associated Press – BERLIN: The U.N.’s cultural agency says the destruction of antiquities and heritage sites in conflict zones by ISIS and other groups could amount to war crimes. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee Monday adopted a resolution condemning “intentional attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE – Translated by Imen Khemiri–The Islamic State (ISIS) arrested 54 people, including women, in Mosul, in Nineveh Province in northern Iraq on charges of spying, according to a security source. Ahmed Jabouri, a police officer in Nineveh, said that ISIS group arrested 54 inhabitants of Mosul and …

Tensions ran high in eastern Iraq on Friday between Kurdish and Shi’ite fighters, highlighting divisions hampering efforts by the U.S.-backed government to blunt the momentum of Islamic State militants. There were conflicting reports on what transpired in Diyala province after Kurdish peshmerga fighters attempted to dig a trench to separate …

President Barack Obama has said American forces being sent to a new operations center in the heart of the war against Islamic State will not engage in combat, but they will do almost everything but fight to support the beleaguered Iraqi forces. U.S. defense officials say the tasks of the …

WASHINGTON: U.S. and coalition forces conducted 13 airstrikes targeting ISIS in Iraq on 11 June, as well as 10 strikes against the militant group in Syria, the U.S. military said. The attacks were intended to diminish the support systems for ISIS, hurting its “morale and ability to sustain the fight …

President Barack Obama’s administration is planning to train Sunni tribes’ fighters as part of its move to send up to 450 additional U.S. forces to Iraq, the White House said on 10 June. The United States is also sending weapons to Sunni tribes, as well as the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, …

Source: Agence France Presse — Iraqi forces battled jihadis on several fronts Thursday and were poised to receive the help of 450 extra U.S. troops slated for deployment near Ramadi. Washington’s decision to send more advisers and trainers to Iraq failed however to silence critics who say the White House …